As the government and the media start their crusade to sell off the council’s assets, the Press has also found time to champion one of the Right’s other pet causes: council amalgamation. One council could well be the answer – but it depends what the question was. Maybe it was “how can we give the people of Canterbury even less say in the decisions that effect their daily lives?” While this was just a short opinion piece from the Press council reporter Lois Cairns, it managed to contain an heroic number of omissions.

First up, what she is suggesting is a merger of the city council (CCC) with the regional council (ECan). This makes it seem like these are the only two bodies in play. ECan is the territorial authority for all of Canterbury – from Timaru to Kaikoura. There are TEN councils in the area covered by ECan, and so merging two of them would create a multitude of issues for the other 9 councils. Surely the Press knows this, so one wonders what might have led them to omission.

Secondly, the comparison to the Auckland Supercity is a fatuous one. The key reason for bringing the supercity together was that Auckland consisted of a number of city councils. While there were also rural and semi-rural ones, and the Auckland regional council, this was about making a city work together as a city. The CCC and ECan have two, almost exclusive, spheres of influence at the moment – rebuilding a city, and expediting water extraction for dairy farming, Why on earth would anyone want to join these two together?*

Thirdly, when comparing Christchurch to the supercity, Cairns has completely overlooked the twin elephants in the room: Selwyn and Waimakariri. If you were going to create one council (and, if you haven’t picked this up already, we most definitely shouldn’t be) then you would start by bringing the two councils that are making bank out of the CCC being severely compromised by the quakes. Selwyn and Waimakariri are opening up huge amounts of land – fabulously fertile farmland – for cookie-cutter subdivisions on the outskirts of Christchurch. They get the rates from these sections, but the people who live there benefit from their proximity to a city to which they don’t contribute rates to.

But of all the crap in this opinion piece, this takes the cake:

Opponents to a unitary authority have cited concerns about the loss of democracy. That argument holds little sway as ECan has been democracy-free since the Government stepped in and appointed commissioners in 2010. The Government has shown little appetite for changing that situation, so if we went down the track of a unitary authority we wouldn’t be losing democracy, we would be regaining it.

So. The government took away our vote, denying us a right that is protected under a UN charter. They then used the tragedy of the earthquakes so they could postpone our rights again – and all so they could hand as much water over to dairy farmers are possible. But don’t worry – this argument has little sway with Lois. Phew. There was me thinking it was the role of the fourth estate to try and speak truth to power. Nope. Instead of being outraged by the removal of our rights, Cairns manages to spin her little proposal as one that gives us more of a vote, not less. In her mind, 1 vote is greater than 2.

This opinion reads like one that came straight from the top floor of the Beehive. No one in Christchurch is asking for this. But on top of the fight we have to save our council assets – which the council are being pressured to sell, so they can build millstones for their own neck like stadiums and convention centres – we’re fighting EQC and insurance. We’re battling against rents going up at crazy rates. We’re struggling around on pot-holed, clogged roads. We’ve got whole suburbs going under water which the government wants us to believe has nothing to do with the quakes. And all the while, extensive, extractive dairy farming is turning our great rivers into open sewers.

We’re fighting on every front, and we’re tired of it. We’ve gone on like this for the best part of four years, living in a state of semi-permanent stress. We need your help. If you’re swinging about who to vote for, have a look down here and see what it means to us. We don’t have a say in what happens to our environment. We have say in our council, but our council doesn’t have much of a say in how our city is run any more. Power has been concentrated into the figure of one man – a man who has in recent weeks shown that he thinks he is above the rule of law. You might think your one vote doesn’t make much of a difference – but it is everything to us here. Another three years of National and Brownlee, and we might not have a vote at a local level at all. Under a Labour led-government, we’d have new elections for ECan, and we’d be passing power back from CERA to the council. It looks like it is the only thing that can stop the relentless march towards turning this city and this region into a wholly owned business subsidiary of the government.

If you think you can help with my campaign, or want to know more, you can sign up here

except maybe if you were the government, and you wanted to combine the only two things that were driving economic growth into one beast with complete Beehive control, no environmental restrictions and no means by which to democratically express their dissent. Putting all our eggs in the one basket, then placing the basket in front of a bulldozer for which only Gerry has the key

36 comments on “Message from Christchurch: Send Help Now”

Assured if you could get the small army of taxpayer funded spin doctors at CERA and CCDU and other places to tell the truth about the recovery and the insurers for once? It’s hard to blame the media when they are confronted with a daily deluge of orchestrated ‘good news’ about all the wonderful ‘progress’ being made, and constant bullying from Gerry and his cronies. I hope the good folks of Canterbury can see through it all.

This is most definitely the case. The things just keep popping up and making the head explode. Rebuilds, repairs done badly, no repairs, bumpy roads, road cones in crazy places, cbd like a bomb site… on it goes as everyone knows…

good thing is the cbd looks like being about to flower soon and that is exciting. Methinks it will be quite something, eventually.

bad thing is the children who have suffered. Have mentioned a few times how if you are an 8 year old then half of your life has been living with earthquakes and blown apart city and homes. That is significant and real. A quake a couple nights ago set one of our multiple off again – easy to tears.

I hope Christchurch residents stop voting for National but I reckon a sizeable lot of them will anyway, no matter if it is their school that closes or their house that sinks under the water. They seem to believe that National is the one true government and like going to see the King, their only means of bringing favourable change is to beseech John Key, Gerry Brownlee and whoever else belongs to the Court. They are living in a pre-democratic state of existence in their minds.

The best help New Zealand can give Christchurch is to get rid of bully Brownlee and cronies like Jenny Shipley who is in the taxpayers trough to the tune of $450,000 for a few meetings a year.
While Brownlee has wasted $100 of millions on Dodgey repairs that will have to be done all over again.
Now he’s bullied the ChCh city council into selling off income earning assets .

Hi, while I am a commentator from the right, this call goes out to all sides of the political divide. It is clear that there is an orchestrated plan by left supporters to systematically destroy National election signs in the Port Hills and Lyttelton Harbour areas (and others). While this may seem like a useful activity, in reality is simply perpetuates the views by many that the left are an angry mob willing to resort to criminal activity to support their position. Would Labour and The Greens like it if national supporters defaced their election signs? What message does this mindless vandalism send to our community and the youth voters who will lead our nations future? Perhaps if both sides were willing to condemn this activity we would all be the better for it, and fairness would prevail on the campaign trail?

Those signs are being vandalized up and down the country, In my area they have had to put all the National signs on private property rather than the road side as they only last a couple a nights when the public can access them freely

nothing to do with any “orchestrated plan by left supporters” , just resentment from the general community toward the incumbent parliament.

If my intent was to troll you’d know about it! Wake up, it’s criminal activity, and you’d cry like only the left can if it happened to your own signs. I’m sure you’ll be condoning the continued attacks, just want to confirm that’s the position of the left.

So you consider some damaged billboards are more important than the topic of this post – the lives of people in Christchurch destroyed by the earthquake, followed by the Nats destruction of democracy, and poor help to the people devastated by the quakes?

One solution is to get rid of this Government and regain democratic ECan. Without Brownlie maybe better priorities would emerge. Less the stadium and no huge Conference Centres at least until after the essential rebuilds have happened.

This government bailed out SC for a billion dollars – private speculators. If I were government I’d gift CHCH a billion dollars and enable them to hold their assets. Why so mean to NZ’s second city? The rest of NZ has a duty to help. Neolibralism and privatised greed will kill us as has happened to the shell society the U$.

The government insured the finance sector because many companies were falling over and thousands of small investors were losing their life savings. Companies were failing, not because all the companies were bad, but simply because everybody was pulling their money out.

Those in the scheme paid the government around $750m in premiums, and the govt recovered nearly $1b from SCF.

So the scheme was highly successful as stopping good companies falling over, and even with the massive losses from SCF and a couple of other companies, the whole scheme will take in virtually the same amount as it paid out.

The government should not have paid out any interest at all, and especially not to the get-rich-quick types who heard that a bailout was underway.

It would also have been appropriate to cut in half each dollar of payments to depositors over say the $200K mark, in order to safeguard ordinary Mum and Dad investor savings, but also tax payers’ interests.

In the scheme as I proposed it, someone with $500,000 invested in a dead finance company would have got $350,000 back. That’s a pretty good bailout. Better than waiting for 5 years of court action to get 11 cents on the dollar eh?

So the only people the scheme would have failed would have been very wealthy people with very large sums foolishly invested in risky, over leveraged, under capitalised institutions that they didn’t do appropriate due diligence on.

And of course in future they wouldn’t re-invest in such risky institutions; they would keep their excess funds in proper banks that are regulated by full Reserve Bank oversight.

So dozens more companies would have failed ANYWAY, even with the scheme.

But the taxpayer would have had to them fund billions of dollars more in payouts to all the smaller investors (who made up a big part of the billions lost in the 60 or so companies who failed BEFORE the scheme).

So you would have legally forced people to keep all their money in a company that was likely to go bust – with due respect, that’s totally nuts.

The problem was a quarter of all deposits were going into finance companies, and when they started to have problems that dropped suddenly to just 1% of deposits by mid 2006.

So by the time the Labour Party designed the deposit guarantee scheme in late 2008, finance companies had been starved of new funds for over two years, but all the while people had been taking their money out – a 5,10, or even 20% liquidity was never going to cope with that.

Which is why 60 finance companies went under, and the only way to stop the dominoes was a guarantee scheme.

And it worked very well. Only around three more companies failed, and the money taken in premiums and recovered from the failed companies was virtually the same as that paid out.

john it is clear you are from the nether regions of our fair lands which benefited from the fraudulent underwriting of South Canterbury Finance. Your view is distorted. Especially in light of your uninhibited glassy-eyed view of Bill English.

No – a lunatic would let the whole financial sector melt down and bankrupt thousands of ordinary Kiwis simply because people were full of panic, when a scheme that cost virtually nothing in the long run could stop it.

And the government does already underwrite businesses – we pay ACC so the govt covers our workers if they get injured, we pay EQC in case our business in damaged in an earthquake, and we pay a fire levy so there is a fire service to protect our businesses.

Businesses also pay tax, despite many getting virtually nothing from the government for that tax.

The whole point of the scheme was to stop companies falling over because of people pulling money out.

If you only fully guarantee the small investors, but the bigger ones stand to lose half their money, then of course they will pull their money out – and the company would fall over, so the scheme would fail.

And then the taxpayer would be left to pay our billions to all the small investors who left their money in.

That’s why unless the scheme guarantees ALL money, in a company, it would be worse than pointless as it would certainly fail, and cost the taxpayer billions.

@ Bill
….. raises another issue, and one that most don’t seem too concerned about, or willing to address.
WHAT (if anything) are political parties of the left going to do to preserve various democratic institutions in future?
How has it become so easy to
– destroy public service broadcasting and any sort of legitimate public sphere
– sell/privatise assets owned by the public – effectively move their value from the hands of the wider electorate into the hands of the few and provide those few with the legalese of property rights that trump a voting public
– pass legislation that does not conform to BORA, The Treaty, etc (in the abscence of a formal constitution)
– use urgency to pass legislation at will, and to give equal effect to it as would that which had gone through ‘normal’ process
– demolish (in this instance corporatise) the public service institutions such that elected representatives can use excuses such as “I cannot interfere in operational matters”, AND/OR various other (now cliched) excuses to do nothing when various government corporate feifdoms fail their public so blatantly and poorly
– allow the permanence of all the above to have existed for so long
??
Surely – given that the left-right pendulum has swung so far right over the past 30 years that the Natzis are referred to with a ‘centre’ prefix, the means of preventing a future repetition should be paramount. I’ve yet to see any ‘left’ slash ‘liberal’ slash ‘progressive’ party address this.
It’s probably also why I cannot give Labour my party vote until I next see their record – post this election

OwTim
About a third of people don’t vote in central government elections, and over two thirds don’t vote in local elections. Democracy is no vote winner.

You are essentially asking if the decline in the entire public sphere can be reversed. My experience is that it takes pretty charismatic leaders to achieve that. Plus at least a decade of work. Check the strength of National’s membership, because of John Key, and the surge in Labour membership due to a refreshed democratic process and a strong, smart leader in David Cunliffe.

They need to be in government for three terms, have committed activist Ministers, and a public service who are motivated. That’s a whole bunch of stars to sustain in alignment.

by Phil DuncanMoney can’t buy me love, went the old Beatles song. Perhaps Mana and the left currents within it should’ve taken the Beatles’ point to heart.Although the sections of the left that supported Mana and the InternetMana… ...

Look, I know you are all fired up about this Asian foreign driver thing. But just stop it. Now. You are the last nation on Earth to be complaining about foreign drivers. You are the most reckless, selfish and unthinking drivers… ...

A report from economics consultancy Econometrics estimates that New Zealand could save $10 million per lunar month if all the work that goes into solving sudoku puzzles were automated. The setting of sudoku is already largely computerised. If the solving… ...

Economic Policies for an Incoming Labour Government By Bryan Gould and George Tait EdwardsPart 2 of 9: Stimulating Wealth Creation If we are to find that better way, we must clearly understand the failures and deficiencies of what has gone… ...

Income Equality Aotearoa New Zealand Inc. Closing the Gap MEDIA RELEASE: 3rd March 2015 “We are delighted to see that the politicians have recognised the greed and selfishness embodied in their initial response to their remuneration increases and are now… ...

So there I was, confidently predicting that Winston Peters wouldn’t risk the humiliation of losing in the Northland by-election… At the end of the day, perhaps the most important point is that Winston Peters really doesn’t like losing. He won’t put himself forward as… ...

Guest Post by Ryan Mearns, Generation ZeroAs we outlined yesterday Auckland Council’s transport budget options in the Long Term Plan offered a false choice. Build everything in the Auckland Plan Network at the cost of finding an extra $300 million a… ...

New Zealanders have been going to the polls for the better part of 150 years. And over that time, voting has changed dramatically. For example, drunkenness, bribery and double voting are no longer considered just part of the day! Thankfully!… ...

Welcome to Australia, where if you don't like the government's racist refugee deportation policies, their airline collaborator will ban you from flying:Qantas has banned a Melbourne man from flying with them after he asked to be removed from a flight… ...

The development of new knowledge and technology is growing at a faster rate than ever before and successful businesses generally have to remain at the cutting edge of their industries to survive. We are now operating in a global, interconnected… ...

One of the predictions about climate change is that climate change-induced drought and famine will lead to more wars. Sadly, it turns out that what is happening in Syria is one of those wars:Drawing one of the strongest links yet… ...

“Do we want to be a society that is supportive, that is inclusive and compassionate, where it is acknowledged that not all can prosper, where those who are most vulnerable, most in need of help, are not seen as lazy… ...

Howie Tamati, sole Maori councillor on the New Plymouth District Council, sees the granting of Maori wards on local councils as a step in the right direction, “not the right answer but a start” (Insight, Radio NZ, March 1st). He… ...

This is a really good post on Christchurch’s future cycling infrastructure. I don’t have a huge amount to add to it, but would suggest you read it, if you prefer your cycling analysis to be backed up by research rather… ...

Gallant Deeds: New Zealand SAS troopers returning from a bitter fire-fight at the Kabul Intercontinental Hotel, Afghanistan, June 2011. The NZ Defence Force is fanatical in its determination to control the totality of information emerging from the theatres in which its… ...

I was wondering why there’s been so much media about the $168,000 rude cake on Facebook HRT finding, and then I read the Tribunal decision which you can find here. It is very long, and amazing in a way that can’t… ...

As readers know, John Key has decided to change the law to change a proposed 5% pay increase for MPs into a 1-2% increase instead. First, this is really smart politics. People hate paying MPs anything, so paying them less… ...

Cry Havoc! For the first time in many years a major New Zealand Christian denomination has come out in support of military action. But have the Catholic Bishops interpreted their Church's "Just War Doctrine" correctly? (Graphic: Warmonger by John… ...

This bulletin inventories reactions to recent revelations made about Wiilie Soon's relationship with the fossil fuel industry while employed by the Smithsonian Institution at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. This bulletin also functions as a supplementary reading list to Dana's recently posted… ...

Let’s be clear: constitutionally, the Executive decides where and how troops are deployed. John Key did not need Parliament’s approval to go to war. And let’s be clear: Key is going to war. Iraq is at war. Training its… ...

Press Release – Doctors for Healthy Trade A careful assessment of what could happen to the health of New Zealanders under the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) is needed, say New Zealand doctors. An Australian report Negotiating Healthy Trade in… ...

Press Release – Public Health Association of Australia A report released today by a large team of academics and non-government health organisations reveals that the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) poses risks to the health of Australians in areas such as… ...

Professor Shiba knew that some day he might be captured by the Yamatais – he, who alone knew the secrets of the ancient monster race that would soon rise up to conquer the world. So he patiently stored himself in… ...

Is this for real? Mike Hosking equates jobs, such as his, a talking head with a soldier’s deployment in Iraq? Please tell me this man is joking? Unbelievable. Is this the ‘get some guts’ that Key talks about? Getting guts… ...

by Danios Below, I have reproduced a year-by-year timeline of America’s wars, which reveals something quite interesting: since the United States was founded in 1776, she has been at war during 214 out of her 235 calendar… ...

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery so we were extremely flattered to see Auckland Transport today start using the images below to advertise some of the benefits of the City Rail Link. … ...

Policy Quarterly has just published papers from a symposium on distributional inequality held last June. There are really interesting papers by Geoff Bertram, Phillip Morrison, Bill Rosenberg and Simon Chapple et al which you may want to read for yourself.read&hellip; ...

Bartholomew Leading A broken rib is no big deal. Sure, it hurts like Hell, but three or more broken ribs hurt worse and, snapped and broken and freely moving under the weight and pressure of a 280lb man can… ...

Tony Abbott's visit to New Zealand gave Australian political commentators another excuse to highlight the failings of his leadership, by comparing him with John Key. However, their list of John Key's successes is a little... odd:Key has, with a minimum… ...

The fight against Islamic State is not the fight of the oppressor against the disposed and the poor. Its leaders and disciples are mostly educated and middle class, if not wealthy. It’s the victims in Iraq and Syria who are the poor.read more ...

Guest Post from Ryan Mearns, Generation Zero Auckland For nearly 50 years from the early 1950’s Auckland invested solely in roads, and especially motorways, with all other transport modes being totally ignored. This one sided level of investment was not… ...

by Michael Roberts Recently Noah Smith pointed out that “Modern macro-economists think that recessions and booms are random fluctuations around a trend. These fluctuations tend to die out — a deep recession leads to a fast recovery, and a big expansion tends… ...

Danyl has some thought-provoking comments about the Herald’s analysis of electoral donations: MPs and other political insiders get really upset if you suggest to them that this is all basically political corruption. Partly this is down to their massive egos. MPs don’t think… ...

The minimum wage rose by 50 cents this month from 14.25 to 14.75. While it’s a small step towards ensuring minimum workers get a fair share, it’s important to remember that real wages only rose 1.5% while productivity rose by… ...

Ever since rumours that (now former) National MP Mike Sabin was being investigated by police were made public, the question on everyone's lips has been "what did the Prime Minister know and when did he know it?" Sabin has since… ...

The Larsen C ice shelf on the east coast of the Antarctic peninsula is primed for a giant iceberg calving event, and could be heading for total collapse — similar to the fate of the Larsen B ice shelf… ...

Economic Policies for an Incoming Labour Government By Bryan Gould and George Tait EdwardsPart 1 of 9: The Coalition Government’s Failed Austerity Programme The outcome of the next general election cannot be confidently predicted but one thing is clear; the… ...

Matt Nippert and the data journalism team at the Herald are uploading all of the electoral donations and crowdsourcing an analysis of it. All sorts of interesting things are cropping up. Like this: New Labour MP Stuart Nash was bankrolled… ...

Share this:

Related

The current and previous Revenue Ministers must front up and explain how the child support system had a budget blowout from $30 million to $210 million in just four years, says Labour’s Revenue spokesperson Clayton Cosgrove. “Peter Dunne was Revenue… ...

A review of the way MPs’ pay is set should also look at ways to curb excessive rises in the salaries of public service chief executives, Labour Leader Andrew Little says. “Some of these CEOs have had stratospheric pay increases… ...

The minimum wage rose by 50 cents this month from 14.25 to 14.75. While it’s a small step towards ensuring minimum workers get a fair share, it’s important to remember that real wages only rose 1.5% while productivity rose by… ...

It should seem obvious to employers, private or public, that it’s important to do what you can to retain your best, most experienced staff. They make life easier for you because they’re effective, attentive and often respected by those around… ...

That ban was widely hailed, and spurred efforts in other countries to get similar bans. However, apes are still being exploited, abused and killed, both in captivity and in the wild. Examples of cruelty, neglect and abuse abound. Apes are… ...

The only word to describe the latest building consent figures for Auckland is ‘tragic’, Labour’s Housing spokesperson Phil Twyford says. “Whatever the Government is doing to address the Auckland housing crisis, it is clearly not working. ...

A pest which could create havoc for New Zealand’s horticulture and agriculture sector must be as much a focus for the Government as hunting out fruit flies, Labour’s Biosecurity spokesperson Damien O’Connor says. “While the Ministry for Primary Industries is… ...

Despite new evidence showing that cuts to health spending are costing lives the Government continues to deny the sector is struggling, Labour’s Health spokesperson Annette King says. “Health services in New Zealand are in crisis. ...

When Hekia Parata became aware that the Whangaruru charter school was experiencing major problems her first action was to drop standards by reducing the number of qualified teachers they had to employ, Labour’s Education spokesperson Chris Hipkins has revealed. “Hekia… ...

John Key and Bill English need to be straight with New Zealanders about the damage their failure to diversify the economy is doing, after new figures show export growth plunged due to a collapse in dairy exports, says Grant Robertson.… ...

This week the International Monetary Fund released a report on the wider economic value in closing the gender pay gap. When even the bastions of free-market economics start to raise concerns about gender pay gaps, we have to realise how… ...

Labour will hold National to its promise to increase the support given to new parents of premature, multiple birth and babies born with disabilities, Labour’s paid parental leave campaigner Sue Moroney says. "I am naturally disappointed that after battling for… ...

Steven Joyce’s confession that he can no longer guarantee a pillar-free design for the New Zealand International Convention Centre shows the Government has abandoned its dream of creating an ‘iconic’ ‘world-class’ structure, says Labour Economic Development spokesperson David Clark. “Steven… ...

John Key might want to have a quiet word with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott about Canberra's just-announced crack down on offshore speculators when he visits New Zealand this week, Labour's Housing spokesperson Phil Twyford says."Tony Abbott's centre right government… ...

National backbencher Jacqui Dean has spoken out about overseas driver crashes, putting herself at odds with Prime Minister John Key who is on record as saying it’s not a big issue, Labour’s Transport spokesperson Phil Twyford says. “I’m not surprised… ...

Last week I heard two Palestinians speak at Wellington events about the ongoing crisis in their country. Samar Sabawi spoke to a full house about the history of Palestine and gave us a lucid and disturbing account of the situation… ...

An Amnesty International report has once again criticised New Zealand’s track record on looking after our kids, Labour’s Children’s spokesperson Jacinda Ardern says. The annual report, which looks at global human rights abuses highlights not only the fact that high… ...

It is clear that the first draft of the Māori Language Bill was about structures and funding rather than the survival of te reo Māori, Labour’s Māori Development Spokesperson Nanaia Mahuta says. “Labour is pleased that the Minister of Māori… ...

The long-awaited release of an Education Review Office report into Northland’s troubled Whangaruru charter school proves it should never have been approved in the first place, Labour’s Education spokesperson Chris Hipkins says. “This report identifies problems with absenteeism and disengaged… ...

This week the Greens have participated in awareness activity about Manus Island, the refugee camp on an island in Papua New Guinea where Australia dumps asylum seekers. John Key says that he has every confidence in the Australian Government’s claim… ...

James Shaw has been doing a series of blogs on the Election Inquiry into last year’s general election. I thought this was a great opportunity to raise an issue very dear to me – accessible voting. Last year’s general election… ...

Housing will continue to be a big issue in 2015. The latest Consumer Price Index, released last month, shows both good news and bad news on the housing front. After years of being the most expensive place to build a… ...

It is amazing that you can hear the song of the endangered North Island kokako in South Auckland’s Hunua Ranges, less than 50 kms from the central city. A heavy schedule of policy workshops at the Green Party’s Policy… ...

The Cricket World Cup has just opened in New Zealand, and it’s an opportunity for us to shine on the world stage. International sport can be a chance for us to build relationships with other countries, and examine what it… ...

This week it was my privilege to work with Sri Lankan Tamil communities in this country and host Australian journalist and human rights advocate Trevor Grant. I knew a bit about Trevor from his biography but I didn’t know just… ...

The Government is about to progress the final stages of the Animal Welfare Amendment bill. This will be our last opportunity to get changes made to improve the bill to ensure a better outcome for animals. I have put forwards… ...

Access to buildings is a big issue for many New Zealanders. It looks like that, due to the hard work and persistence of people in the disability community, the Government may finally be starting to take access to buildings seriously.… ...

The Green Party today called on the New Zealand Superannuation Fund (the Fund) to divest from fossil fuels, starting immediately with coal. The call was accompanied with a new report, Making money from a climate catastrophe: The case for divesting… ...

Share this:

Related

The Privy Council’s upholding of the Teina Pora appeal is further evidence New Zealand needs a Criminal Cases Review Panel, Dean of the University of Canterbury’s School of Law, Associate Professor Chris Gallavin says. ...

A careful assessment of what could happen to the health of New Zealanders under the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) is needed, say New Zealand doctors. An Australian report Negotiating Healthy Trade in Australia: Health Impact Assessment ...

Youth organisation, Generation Zero, is today launching a report - Fix Our City: An analysis of the Transport Budget in the 2015 - 2025 Long Term Plan - that proposes that Auckland Council focuses on a transport budget that prioritises… ...

“We are delighted to see that the politicians have recognised the greed and selfishness embodied in their initial response to their remuneration increases and are now proposing to amend the appropriate legislation. About time! ” ...

International Women’s Day is a day for celebrating women’s economic, political and social achievements around the globe. It is a day to acknowledge women’s successes, while recognising that there is still a long way to go in ending the inequalities… ...

Family First NZ says that the NZ lecture tour by Dr Rob Jonquiere, a leader of the Dutch euthanasia movement, will ignore the mounting evidence from his own country that there’s no safe way to kill people and that assisted… ...

State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie has today announced the appointment of Brook Barrington as Chief Executive and Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT). ...

Rainbow Labour will be learning from the outcomes of the recent United Nations Development Programme’s Regional dialogue on LGBTI rights and health in Asia and the Pacific recently held in Bangkok, Thailand over February 25-27 and attended by Labour MP… ...

Carer Relief Workers Gain Minimum Employment Rights Over 35,000 home care relief workers have gained the right to the minimum wage and holidays through a case won by the Service and Food Workers Union in the Employment Court. The court… ...